First appearing as massive machines seen only in the basements of research universities, the computer eventually found its way into homes and offices in the smaller, more accessible form of a personal computer. The introduction of simpler, “user-friendly” methods for controlling the operations of computers was accomplished by substituting a graphical user interface for the typewriter-like interface. Graphical user interface allows the user to select icons (graphic symbols of computer functions) from a display screen instead of requiring typed commands. As computers and software applications have become easier to use, or more “user-friendly,” many people are finding them both useful for entertainment and necessary for their jobs. With the proliferation of applications that provide similar services, software manufacturers have turned the personal computer into a highly competitive zone to get users to use their software.
The perception of user-friendliness at the surface of the graphical user interface belies complex choices and intricate instructions that allow a personal computer to operate. In making computers and related equipment, original equipment manufacturers typically purchase or license software applications from software manufacturers and hardware components from hardware manufacturers; integrate them into products of the original equipment manufacturers; and sell these products to the public. Initially, choices are made for users by the software manufacturers to allow these users to easily operate software upon installation without tedious customization and intimate familiarity. To satisfy users in various markets, the original equipment manufacturers change the choices made by software manufacturers, which cause varied configurations from personal computer to personal computer. These choices are known as defaults, which are selections automatically used by software applications in the absence of a choice made by a user. Inexperienced users can rely on choices made by software manufacturers and original equipment manufacturers at first, but overtime, as users progress in their experience and grow confident in using the personal computer, these users may begin to form their own preferences and desire to change the previously set choices and defaults.
The software marketplace has become intensely competitive. Various software manufacturers have fought vigorously to maintain their wares as the applications of choice, (the defaults), in disregard to user preferences. A system 100 in FIG. 1 illustrates this problem in greater detail. The system 100 includes two competing applications 102, 112, which are players for playing music and other audio files that either have been ripped (transferred from a compact disk to a hard disk) or distributed over the Internet via a suitable digital audio coding scheme, such as MP3.
Players 102, 112, like other window applications, include title bars 104, 114, which are horizontal spaces at the top of windows that contain the name of the application, such as “Music Player 1” or “Music Player 2.” Appearing as square buttons in the right corners of title bars 104, 114 with an X marked on them are Close buttons 106, 116. Clicking on Close buttons 106, 116 cancels players 102, 112. A number of buttons in iconic form 108A-108C, 118A-118C, allow a user to access streaming digital music elsewhere on the Internet. For example, buttons 108A, 118A allow the user to access encoded classical music, which includes music in the educated European tradition in forms such as art song, chamber music, opera, and symphony as well as music of the late 18th and early 19th centuries characterized by an emphasis on balance, clarity, and moderation. Jazz music that is characterized by propulsive, syncopated rhythms, polyphonic ensemble playing, varied degrees of improvisation, and deliberate distortion of pitch and timbre can be accessed by actuating buttons 108B, 118B. Rock music, which is popular music played on electronically amplified instruments and characterized by persistent heavily accented beats, much repetition of simple phrases, and often containing country, folk, and blues elements, is accessed by clicking on buttons 108C, 118C.
Players 102, 112 include sets of VCR-style mechanisms 110, 120, which are user interfaces for playing music files. Mechanisms 110, 120 have controls similar to those on a video cassette recorder, including a rewind control, a play control, a fast-forward control, and a stop control. A music file 122 is a collection of audio information that a user can send to players 102, 112 to reproduce the original music recording. When the user double-clicks on the music file 122, the user expects either the player 102 or the player 112—but not both—to open the music file 122 and proceed to play the music stored therein.
The system 100 includes a database 124 into which player 102 can set itself during the installation process as the default in launching application 102 when the music file 122 is double-clicked by the user. The database 124 includes any suitable databases, such as the registry of Microsoft Windows®. Because the player 112 can also service the same type of music file 122, during the installation of the player 112, which is subsequent to the installation of the player 102, the installation process of the player 112 accesses the database 124, removes the player 102 as the default, and asserts itself (the player 112) as the default. This practice of supplanting another application to make one's own application the default has grown worse with the proliferation of applications that provide similar services—irrespective of users' preferences.
To prevent the player 112 from usurping the player 102 as the default, the software manufacturer of the player 102 can engineer a service 126 running in the background of the system 100 to monitor the database 124. When the service 126 determines that the player 112 or other applications have displaced the player 102 as the default, the service 126 modifies portions of the database 124 so that the player 102 is once again the application of choice. However, the software manufacturer of the player 112 also can launch its own service 128 to monitor the database 124. When the service 128 detects that the player 102 among other applications has replaced the player 112 as the default, the service 128, like the service 126, changes portions of the database 124 to reflect that the player 112 is again the application of choice to play the music file 122.
This tug-of-war between players 102, 112 is carried out in complete disregard for the preferences of the user. Moreover, as players 102, 112 and services 126, 128 contest, the system 100 becomes unstable. The user is not assured which player, 102 or 1-12, will be launched when the user double-clicks on the music file 122. The data in the database 124 continues to be in a transient state because of the constant modifications by services 126, 128. Without a solution to quiet the dispute between applications and respect the preferences of users, eventually users may no longer trust the system 100 to provide a desired computing experience and the demands for the system 100 as well as players 102, 112 will diminish from the marketplace. Thus, there is a need for a method and a system for realizing users' preferences regarding applications to be launched to process corresponding kinds of files, while avoiding or reducing the foregoing and other problems associated with existing applications.